


Each Time You Hear A Sad Guitar

by Yuripaws (orphan_account)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Ghosts, M/M, Music, Possible suicide implication, yoispookyweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 17:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16496624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Yuripaws
Summary: Yuuri visits Viktor to find him playing guitar.Written for Day 6 of Yuri on Ice Spooky Week. Prompt: Ghosts/Spirits.





	Each Time You Hear A Sad Guitar

**Author's Note:**

> Hey again! One more fic for spooky week~
> 
> Please mind the tags! This is a ghost story and as such will involve death.
> 
> This was kind of a weird idea that spawned as I was listening to my Disney playlist so it's. Odd I guess ahaha my first thought was to make it a cute long distance fic until my brain went "nice, but what if it was Sad."
> 
> Also I hope theres no inaccuracies re: sports injuries akdkaks I hope this all makes sense!

Yuuri pauses with one hand on the doorknob to his and Viktor’s apartment. It’s been nearly two years since he’d first been able to call this place his home, and to this day it still makes him hesitate, makes him pause before entering -- just to reassure himself that this is real.

But he pauses for a different reason today. The faint plucking of guitar strings sounds from within, notes meandering toward the doorway as though dazed, lost. Yuuri frowns. Viktor only seems to play when he’s sad. Which is often, nowadays.

He has to put on his best smile as he enters their bedroom, and although his smiles are usually the least sincere when he’s anxious, he knows the sight of it will ease Viktor’s worries. Because Viktor’s worries are always about him.

Viktor is in bed, as he often is. Nowadays. He looks up from his guitar and stares at Yuuri in the doorway, and while he doesn’t look surprised to see him there, he still looks as though he hadn’t quite been expecting him.

“You’re here earlier than I thought.” It’s said with a wan smile, a pale slash in an even paler face. Yuuri feels guilty.

“Rostelecom is in a week, but I had to come early. To see you,” he clarifies. He’d come to train as well, but speaking of skating to Viktor any more than strictly necessary makes Yuuri anxious.

It’s not fair, he thinks, anger flaring within him suddenly. He wishes, as he so often does, that it had been himself who’d gotten injured during their exhibition skate a year ago. It had been much grander and more daring than their Stammi Vicino Duetto program, and Yuuri had assured Viktor time and time again that he could handle it, that he was strong enough, that they’d be perfect.

And they had been. But not for long.

And so the world had been deprived of its living legend once more -- a champion rising from his ashes for one more season before crumbling back into dust and shards of broken bone.

And so the world had been left with just Yuuri Katsuki.

What a joke.

Viktor smiles at him, then down at his guitar. Yuuri eyes it curiously. Music had been something Viktor had picked up on during his forced retirement, although Yuuri recalls very early magazine interviews involving Viktor in his Junior days telling wild tales of his dream to become a rock star. Yuuri can picture it so easily -- Viktor shirtless and screaming his heart out to crowds of adoring fans. Probably because Viktor is so often shirtless and surrounded by crowds of adoring fans, though thankfully not at the same time.

Yuuri smiles his first real smile since entering his home, and gestures almost shyly at the guitar.

“What were you playing just now? It sounded familiar.”

Viktor doesn’t answer at first, only plucks at a few strings. After a few seconds, he speaks.

“You always liked this song. That’s why I always play it. It’s from that movie we would watch when you were around more, the one that makes you cry because it reminds you of Vicchan.”

“Only when I’m drinking,” Yuuri mutters. He knows the one Viktor means, though, and he comes closer to the bed to sit at the edge. “Please play it?”

Viktor doesn’t look at him. He doesn’t seem to register that he’s spoken. The fingers at the neck of the guitar tighten slightly, and the strings tense, like the lines in Viktor’s forehead. There are lines beneath his eyes, too, and stubble along his jaw. For a moment he looks like a ghost, lifted from some dreary painting and deposited in the middle of their warm and sunny bedroom. Then he blinks and glances in Yuuri’s direction.

“Sorry. Sometimes when you’re around… I forget what I’m doing.”

He says it with a small smile, almost like that had been an attempt at flirtation. Yuuri’s cheeks heat, and his heart starts to pound as Viktor repositions the guitar and clears his throat. For a moment, Yuuri can’t recall what Viktor’s singing sounds like at all. How long has it been since he’d last heard it? Viktor begins, voice low and obviously disused at first, and Yuuri listens raptly as it strengthens with each word.

_“Remember me, though I have to say goodbye,”_ Viktor falters slightly, wincing, before pressing on, fingers plucking gently at strings. _“Remember me, don't let it make you cry.”_

Yuuri moves closer, but not so close that he gets in the way of Viktor’s playing. Viktor looks so sad as he sings, it’s hard not to reach out and touch his cheek. They still haven’t embraced since Yuuri had walked in, but he can wait until after the song. It’s dedicated to him, after all.

_“For even if I'm far away, I hold you in my heart,”_ Viktor sings with a hint of the familiar charming smile, like he’s recalling a long lost memory. _“I sing a secret song to you each night we are apart.”_

Every night apart from Viktor had been torture. It’d been inevitable during some of their competitions, but with Viktor out of commission and Yuuri working harder than ever to prove that he can succeed in skating without him, their days had grown shorter, with longer intervals and sadder goodbyes.

_“Remember me, though I have to travel far.”_ Here the tears begin to fall, and Viktor shakes his head slightly when Yuuri reaches out -- though if it’s to stop him or to clear his vision, Yuuri isn’t sure.

_“Remember me, each time you hear a sad guitar.”_

And how many times has Yuuri heard this sad guitar? He’s lost count. It calls to him, tugs at him gently but imploringly. It says something he can’t understand, something he can’t remember.

_“Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be,”_ Viktor sings, voice trembling but fighting to remain steady. _“Until you're in my arms again.”_

The room is far too bright, the sun shining more intensely than Yuuri had recalled just a few moments ago. He feels hazy, lost, as though his body is far away, far from here. He wants to call out to Viktor but finds that he can’t speak. Viktor is still playing, though it slows as his words trail off, then stops completely. For what seems like the first time since Yuuri had walked in, Viktor’s eyes lock onto his, startling blue behind silvery lashes sleek with tears.

“Remember, Yuuri.”

Had his shrine for Vicchan always been in the room? Yuuri notices it so abruptly that he pauses before he can ask Viktor exactly what he’s supposed to be remembering. He hardly feels himself rise from the bed, and he can’t feel the floor beneath his heels as he walks, as though he were floating.

Drawing nearer, he spots differences from the one back home in Hasetsu, and as his mind struggles to puzzle out what it could be doing here, his eyes meet a familiar pair staring at him from behind the glass of a picture frame.

It’s him.

The guitar starts up again behind him, soft and steady, though Viktor doesn’t sing this time. Yuuri stares at his photo in the center of his shrine. And he remembers.

It hadn’t been Viktor who’d gotten injured beyond recovery. It’d been _him._

Flashes of a sickening crack, blood on the ice, in his hair, flashing lights and cold rooms. Pain that ebbed away along with his consciousness. Then, nothing. His memories of continuing to skate while Viktor retired hadn’t been real. None of this had been real. So where has he been all this time? Floating somewhere unknown, lost yet tenacious, returning on occasion to haunt his apartment. _Their_ apartment.

Anchored here by the other half of his soul. Lured in by the guitar, the one that urges him to remember, urges him to --

Yuuri whirls back around to face Viktor, only to find him gone, the whole room is gone, and the light is so blinding that he has to shield his eyes. But the guitar plays on, blanketing him in its soothing sound, carrying him like a tender lullaby to a place unknown. Viktor’s voice speaks in his ear with startling clarity, a low rumble beneath sweet strings that sets his soul on fire.

“Remember me, Yuuri. I’ll be in your arms again soon, I promise.”

It’s what he tells him each time, what he sings to him when he comes lurking, lost in a delusion. But Yuuri hears him now. He remembers.

He closes his eyes and lets the guitar guide him home. There, he remembers. There, he waits.


End file.
